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Thursday, August 1, 2013

Brain-Eating Parasites Thrive As Global Warming Heats Up U.S. Lakes

Toxoplasmosis is a parasitic disease caused by the protozoan Toxoplasma gondii. The parasite can infect most warm-blooded animals (including humans), but the primary host is the cat family. Animals are infected by eating contaminated meat/water, by ingestion of cat feces, or by transmission from mother to fetus. Although cats are usually blamed for spreading this brain parasite, contact with raw meat is a more significant cause of human infections in many countries.
Once infected, it typically causes a mild flu or no illness at all. Basically, the parasite rarely causes any symptoms in otherwise healthy adults. However, those with a weakened immune system or pregnant women, may become seriously ill, and it can occasionally be fatal.

Why This Is Interesting:

Scientific studies show that the toxoplasmosis parasite may affect behavior and may be a causative factor in various psychiatric disorders such as depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, and more! Scientists estimate that up to 60% of the world's human population is infected.

Infected men may have lower IQs, achieve a lower level of education and have shorter attention spans. They are also more likely to break rules and take risks, be more independent, more anti-social, suspicious, jealous and morose, and are deemed less attractive to women.

On the other hand, infected women tend to be more outgoing, friendly, more promiscuous, and are considered more attractive to men compared with non-infected controls.

It’s a fatal infection without an effective treatment, and one that strikes in a decidedly gruesome manner: An amoebic organism lurking in water is inadvertently inhaled during a swim on a hot summer’s day. From there, it travels through the nasal passage and into the brain, where it multiplies, devours one’s cerebral fluid and gray matter, and almost invariably causes death.

The good news is that it is, or has been, an exceedingly rare disease — “between 2002 and 2011, there were only 32 infections in the US.” But as far back as 2007, Michael Beach, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) expert in recreational waterborne illnesses, warned:

“This is a heat-loving amoeba. As water temperatures go up, it does better. In future decades, as temperatures rise, we’d expect to see more cases.”

The CDC notes that this (thermophilic) amoeba is “able to grow and survive at higher temperatures, such as those found in hot springs and in the human body, even under fever temperatures.”

In recent years, N. fowleri has popped up in unexpected locations, which some experts suggest is a sign that warmer waters — caused by brutal summer heat waves and rising temperatures across the country — are catalyzing their spread.

“The climate is changing, and let me tell you, so is this,” says Travis Heggie, an associate professor at Bowling Green State University who’s tracked the amoebas for several years. “If warm weather keeps up, I think we’ll see N. fowleri popping up farther and farther north.”

How far north?

In Minnesota, public health officials were stunned to see two fatalities caused by N. fowleri — both young children — in 2010 and 2012. The cases are the only in state history, and occurred about 550 miles farther north than any previous reported … fatality in the US.

The point isn’t that N. fowleri is the most destructive of the animals, insects and organisms that benefit from climate change — the voracious bark beetle probably wins that category (so far). The point is that invasive species almost by definition want to see the climate change.

So the next time someone says that there will be winners and losers from global warming, remember that many of those winners will help make Homo sapiens one of the biggest losers.

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